Sacrifice
by Laryna6
Summary: Post-Atsuro Route, mostly gen. When Abel falls ill, Atsuro is forced to ask the help of a teacher he's avoided since the Lockdown. He trusted Naoya, and Naoya trapped them in there with the demons to turn Abel into one. If he was willing to do that to his own brother, then did he ever care about his student? How can they really be sure, dealing with such a practiced manipulator?
1. In The Garden

_Flufffffff..._

_So much brotherly and Atsubro fluff in this fic._

_I tried to have more going on, but it got drowned under the fluff and Naoya deciding that he'd rather garden than do what I wanted him to. So here you go._

* * *

"Naoya?" he asked nervously as the guard who escorted him here closed the door behind him.

Under other circumstances he might have noted that wow, this was some cushy cell, but then Naoya was the one who programmed Babel to accept the government's instructions. Had he only agreed to Atsuro's plan because it gave him leverage on them, leverage he could use to wrangle himself a backdoor pardon?

The only reason he hadn't been released already was because Naoya had no real objection to staying in protective custody until memories of the lockdown faded, until people became grateful to the creator of the demon summoning program for giving them healing magic, magic that would even let them bring back dead loved ones like Honda's son instead of hating him for all the people who died in the lockdown.

This wasn't even a cell: the car that picked him up had driven Atsuro to some isolated estate. It wasn't like walls could hold Naoya, he knew.

Especially not the walls of a greenhouse.

"So, the prodigal student returns," Naoya said, turning to smile at him. What stunned Atsuro was that he seemed almost happy, almost gentle, standing here among all these plants.

"Hydroponics, huh?" Atsuro asked, looking around him at the maze of glass tubes of all colors – that was so like Naoya, to even make something like this beautiful because he was the one making it and he never did shoddy work – that was spread throughout the greenhouse.

"Growing plants entirely without soil, so they draw their nourishment from the water if the earth refuses to nurture them." Naoya smiled to himself. "I've been interested in the concept for a long time, but I've been too busy to experiment until now. It works." He surveyed the greenhouse with a soft, almost parental look in his eyes, the way he'd look when Abel got an A, patting him on the head and saying 'That's my cousin.'

Atsuro wanted to say yeah, people had been growing stuff hydroponically for awhile now, but the earth refusing to nourish plants? What Remiel said, Babel and Abel?

Seeing Naoya like this, retiring from the world to a small estate to _farm_?

He opened his mouth a little, but even he was smart enough not to say it. _Naoya, you really are Cain, aren't you_? It explained everything. How Remiel knew him, why the angel had known him long enough to even trust him, even though Sariel hadn't trusted him an inch.

"Shut your mouth, Atsuro, unless you want to swallow a bug. Speaking of bugs, don't worry, I swept for them. You noticed that the walls of this greenhouse are one-way glass, I trust? I have this magnificent view, but they can't see in, so no need to worry about lip-reading. Not that you're saying anything but 'Oh.'" Oh, like Atsuro had realized something.

That almost made Atsuro say what he knew, but if Naoya really was Cain, then he might not help when "Abel is sick. Just tired all the time: he doesn't want to do anything anymore, and no matter how much he eats, he's still hungry and you know what I'm talking about, don't you?" The expression on Naoya's face was annoyance, not real worry. Frustration, frustration with himself? "I thought you said he wouldn't be turned into a demon!"

"He wasn't," Naoya said, giving Atsuro a quelling look for a moment before his eyes regained that distant look and he scowled at something.

"But you knew this was going to happen?" Atsuro demanded angrily.

"No, I thought I solved that issue…" He started walking towards Atsuro: no, past him, to the door. "I'll have them fetch him here: I dislike repeating myself."

"If this is your mistake then you can fix it, right?"

"I find your lack of faith disturbing… Don't worry, Atsuro. He'll be fine. He was fine until recently, so the…" Naoya paused, thinking of a word. "_Traditional _methods clearly still work. If he'd listened to me and fought _him _for our sakes this wouldn't be happening, but he _is _my cousin, after all. It seems I'll have to adjust some things, but he'll be able to have that ordinary life if he wants it so much." Naoya paused with his hand on the door, looking back past Atsuro, at the expanse of light and green and color. "Peaceful days themselves are a luxury," he said, and a flash of something old and sad appeared in those red eyes. "But if we don't fight for them, they will be taken from us." He seemed to shake himself awake, out of old, old memories. "Wait here, Atsuro. I'll be back in a moment."

Atsuro opened his mouth again, wanting to go after Naoya to make sure he hurried to have them bring Abel here, so he could get better, but then he frowned at himself. Didn't he trust Naoya at all? He'd admired him so much: he still did. Finding out that Naoya had started the Lockdown that killed so many people, that he wanted to turn his own cousin into a demon: Atsuro had thought better of him than that. He'd looked up to Naoya, all this time, and then he'd trapped them in the lockdown, betrayed and used them like that?

He came here asking for Naoya's help, and he'd just assumed this was Naoya's fault and gotten angry at him like that, when Naoya had tried to keep Abel from getting sick in the first place? Just like he'd put so much work into the cathedral of shadows and everything else to help them survive.

In hindsight, Atsuro knew that the Bel demons would have come after Abel anyway, so Naoya was trying to protect them and his cousin, but "Look, Naoya…" he started to say when his teacher returned.

"It's alright, Atsuro. Of course you're worried for him," Naoya said with a hint of a smirk as he passed Atsuro one of his energy drinks, keeping a can of tea for himself.

He hadn't said that like, 'you were worried, so I'm going to take pity on you and ignore that you snapped at me.' He'd said it like Atsuro being worried was the result he wanted, something going exactly according to plan, and Atsuro remembered seeing that smirk before, hidden in the smile his teacher wore after asking Atsuro about Abel, what his student thought of his little cousin.

"You wanted us to be friends, didn't you?" Atsuro said, taking the can but not drinking, not yet, just holding it in his hands, not knowing what it meant that Naoya had this here, obviously for him. Naoya was always so good at planning ahead, so _thoughtful_ about everything all the time, that it was easy to mistake it for him giving a damn about you. It was easy to feel flattered that someone cared enough about you to understand you, to take you and what you wanted into consideration. He'd thought it was just that Naoya was nice, even if he didn't act like it all the time, but was it really taking care of people or was it manipulation? Or even just good planning: had he thought 'Atsuro will come, so to be prepared I will put this on the shopping list,' or 'Atsuro likes this, so I'll get it for him, so he feels welcome?' Where could Atsuro even draw the line, when Naoya was so… Naoya?

"Of course," Naoya said, and it was a relief that he wasn't angry. No, he looked the way he did when Atsuro was failing to see something obvious, something that was part of a lesson, and it was cute that he was trying. Like watching a child try to stumble upright. "Didn't you want a friend your own age?"

"Yeah," he'd confided that in his teacher. Naoya was really good at getting people to open up, but "Naoya…"

"I wanted my cousin to have a loyal friend who would stay by his side in order to protect him." The corner of Naoya's mouth tilted up, but red eyes were still warm. "Is that such a bad thing? Yes, I used you, but everyone uses everyone else. You complained that I was treating you like pawns in the lockdown, but didn't you come to me and try to make me program for you, be a pawn in your little scheme? You need to learn to rely on yourself, Atsuro, but there's nothing wrong with making use of others, as long as you look after them instead of just assuming that they'll look after you without being given anything in return. Weren't you disgusted by all of those in the Lockdown who just sat around, waiting for the government, for someone else to fix everything, and complaining about how terrible it was to have food and water provided to them while they did nothing productive? Haven't you figured out by now that I taught you for a reason, that I introduced you to my cousin and gave you the friend you wanted for a reason? And were those really such bad reasons?"

Atsuro's hands tightened around the can, just not knowing what to say because, well, because Naoya.

Silver hair shone in the light that came in through the mirror glass. "Tell me, Atsuro. Aren't you glad you weren't one of those people? Aren't you glad that I chose you? Otherwise, you would have been just another face in the crowd: you wouldn't have been able to shape the future, to convince my brother to follow the path you choose and restore control over demons and magic to the world." Naoya laughed, but there was barely any mockery in it. "Haven't I been an excellent pawn in your own schemes? Haven't you used me to grant so many of your own desires? Admit it, Atsuro: if you could do it over again, would you really ignore that first e-mail I sent you? Aren't you glad we met?"

"Yes," Atsuro said, feeling something tight in his chest. "I'm really glad I met you, Naoya, and you're right, I really am grateful, but… I just don't know anymore."

"I tended you, Atsuro, as I've tended this world. In some ways, I've done more to shape you into the man you are than your parents have."

And that was true: it was Naoya that Atsuro had gone to when he had a problem, not his so-distant parents. When he locked himself out, when they forgot to deposit money into his account and he couldn't get a hold of them…

"Of course we feel betrayed, of course it hurts, when we realize that someone we regarded as family never loved us." It was Naoya that looked down at his tea now. "That they were only planning to use us from the start: that every bit of pain and anguish we've experienced was just part of their grand plan… As Abel said, Atsuro, I am a jerk. It runs in the family. I am also very good at manipulating others, but I draw the line at convincing someone that I care for them in order to use that against them. If I despised you, Atsuro, that would have been clear from the beginning. I wouldn't have chosen you, among all the billions of people on this world, to be my student and my brother's friend if you weren't worthy. Now," Naoya said, raising his head again to look at Atsuro. "Does that make you feel better."

That was barely a question, and it did. Almost: Atsuro's eyes stung now, and he had to take a deep breath, had to swallow.

"Drink up," Naoya told him, as advice. Focus on something else so you don't cry from relief.

Was this why Naoya had brought him something? For a moment that seemed like a silly thought, but Naoya probably could have thought this conversation out in advance. Atsuro knew he probably wasn't that hard to predict, not for Naoya.

"Showing up here at this hour: you didn't eat breakfast and you were too shy to ask the driver to stop somewhere so you could get something to eat while they were bringing you up here, weren't you." Naoya tched. "I thought I'd show off my garden while we waited for the helicopter, but that will have to wait until Abel gets here."

Right: low blood sugar, that was totally why Atsuro's hands were shaking a little.

"Follow me," Naoya said, and that sounded like a really good idea, since that way Atsuro was facing Naoya's back and he could pretend Naoya couldn't imagine what he looked like perfectly well.


	2. God and Man

_We're still in the Twelve Days of Christmas, so here, have some more with the begotten sons of the only begotten son of YHVH that's SMT canon, since they go with Old Testament._

_Speaking of which, I love that Naoya quotes the New Testament (when the Demon Summoning Program is booting up there's a long segment of text from it). But then, I love Paul's letters to the various Christian communities myself. One of them contains like the only mention of homosexuality in the New Testament. 'You think this is bad, yes? Now here's a list of stuff you're doing that actually is bad, so STFU and work on your souls.' And modern Christians are still ignoring this and disobeying the Bible by picking on homosexuality and other things they can get up in arms about because they're too lazy to do what the New Testament says God actually wants them to do. Because lynch mobs are fun and being a good person takes _work_. And _humility_ and _compassion _and other things they're too lazy to develop. _

_This shows up just before the "Let's Survive:" "No one is righteous; No, not one." And therefore, no one has any right to be judgemental. To do what Keisuke does, cloaking vengeance and feelings of superiority behind righteousness and (a) god's will._

_It's interesting that Naoya even acknowledges the existence of the New Testament instead of viewing it as 'whitewashing' God, propaganda to make people ignore the half of the book all about God's horrible crimes, but if the New Testament was something made up by humans... There's the quote about how "Christianity would be a good idea if anyone ever tried it." For the time, Christianity was very ground-breakingly humanist. Turning the word of an anti-human God into something that says that humans should work to improve themselves and their own souls instead of just trying to force compliance onto others. He probably likes it more because it is so contrary to the will of YHVH..._

_...but that would just make it fit better with the God Naoya probably believed in as a child, wouldn't it? The one he gathered the best fruits of his garden for, the one he killed Abel out of love of. _

_I've heard that there's some Word of God saying that YHVH isn't naturally evil but is getting distorted/turned evil somehow, so Naoya... acknowledging the existence of something that regards God as a god of love, one who has compassion for humanity's flaws instead of deliberately using those flaws to provoke people into murdering in his name? Since Shin Megami Tensei usually doesn't touch on the New Testament, I really have to wonder why they made the choice to have Naoya's character incorporate it into his program, even if in such a 'blink and you'll miss it' way. It certainly wasn't something the Shomonkai would have wanted in there, since they're anti-YHVH._

_Now I'm wondering how Remiel reacted to seeing that when Amane booted up her comp. On the one hand, it's heresy/just something humans made up, but on the other..._

* * *

Naoya was a really good cook, which made sense in hindsight. Since he was the 'one who resurrects,' wouldn't he have had a lot of time to practice? He could do things with rice and beans and vegetables that made them taste really good even without any meat. Naoya _would _cook eggs, but also fish and even meat if Abel asked him to, but since both of Abel's parents worked Naoya was the one who did the cooking in that house. Atsuro was over enough to notice that Abel's father didn't seem very fond of beef, although he'd eat it when they did get it, and steak on Abel's birthday.

Sitting by the counter watching Naoya's back as he worked in the kitchen, expertly chopping and mixing and keeping two pans and a pot busy, not even counting the rice cooker felt familiar, although normally there were bento boxes spread out on that table in the evenings. Not that any of it kept him too distracted to glance at a bit of faulty code and tell Atsuro where he'd messed up and how. Abel generally did his homework then, listening with maybe a quarter of an ear. Not that it took Abel long at all to do his homework: he was really good at math, so Atsuro shouldn't have been surprised that he could calculate two to the tenth power that fast. Well, Abel had told him the trick to it, but Atsuro still would have had to count that out on his fingers or something to keep track.

"So, has Yuzu's mother given up her plans to move to America, or was it Europe?" Naoya asked when Atsuro's drink was almost gone.

After hearing about everything her daughter went through, Yuzu's mom thought the idea of putting the entire mass of the planet between Yuzu and Japan since the country was planning to _still _use demons sounded like the best way to keep her safe.

"Yeah, but she doesn't seem happy about it. She's still not letting Yuzu even visit us." Atsuro hadn't seen her except for a couple official interviews since then, although Yuzu had managed to sneak off and call them to make sure they were alright a couple of times. "Commander Fushimi said they're not going to let Yuzu leave the country, not when she's so strong." That applied to Atsuro and Abel too. "That doesn't make sense: it's not like we can use the demon summoning program anymore." They weren't authorized.

"The program, no." Atsuro didn't need to see Naoya's face to know that he was smiling, that he expected Atsuro to figure it out from that.

"If not the program, then what? You mean demons like Pazuzu? But Gin and Jikoku restored the barrier," an operation that involved Naoya getting punched in the face, although he hadn't seemed especially angry about it, "So that shouldn't happen anymore, right?"

"Only the government can use the program, but a program can't run without hardware or a power source, now can it?"

"It's running off the internet, but the server's Babel… and Abel controls Babel, right?" Atsuro's eyes widened.

"As though I would have put such power into the hands of a government stupid enough to trust the angels without some check on them… Yes: now that my program is a part of Babel, all it would take for my brother to shut it down is an act of will. The two of you would make valuable hostages."

"And that's another reason why they're not putting you on trial like Azuma, isn't it?" Because they couldn't afford to piss off Abel, or else the harmonizer and healing spells would stop working. The summoned demons might even stop obeying.

"One of many." Naoya was indeed smiling to himself as he put the first of three plates down by Atsuro. "As I've said, there's no need for you to worry about me."

Even though this was like twice as much food as Atsuro thought he could eat, Naoya kept cooking instead of sitting down himself. This must be for Abel, huh: it wouldn't take him long to get here if they were bringing him in a helicopter, and if Abel really was that important then they'd pull out all the stops if Naoya said it was important.

Atsuro was poking one of the tiny carrots cut to look something like a pinecone with a chopstick when the door banged open and a couple orderlies came in carrying a stretcher. Naoya cursed in Akkadian as he hurried around the counter. Atsuro was hoping that this was just a precaution or something, that they'd made him lie down and let them carry him, but Abel would have been smiling, however wanly, to reassure them if that was the case.

He'd been pale when Atsuro left, but when the orderlies put him down and Atsuro could get a look at his face, Naoya kneeling down by Abel's head, he saw that even all this noise hadn't woken him.

"You, out," Naoya ordered. "That includes you," he told Commander Fushimi and Captain Izuna, who Atsuro only now realized had come in after the orderlies.

"He's in critical condition," Commander Fushimi again. "Captain Izuna had to cast recarm on him in the helicopter, and you aren't authorized to use magic."

Naoya snorted. "As though that would stop me."

Fushimi chose to ignore that: Yeah, as though Naoya would let the law stop him from _keeping his cousin alive._

"Out," Naoya repeated himself, the force of his will almost a physical pressure on the two orderlies.

Atsuro would have been more amazed that they damn near ran, even though it meant abandoning a patient, if this wasn't Naoya.

Who was already pulling Abel up to lean against him, doing something with his other arm that Atsuro couldn't see with Abel in the way. Not until Naoya passed the knife to his other hand and, looking as though he was working on some bit of wiring, brought that knife down towards Abel's head.

"Drop it!" Izuna ordered, drawing her gun.

Naoya did, but only after the scent of blood filled the air. That hand held Abel against him, while the other pressed his brother's lips to the cut Naoya had made in his own shoulder. "How much _are _you using the demon summoning program," he wondered, sounding a bit annoyed. "For this body's reserves to be exhausted so quickly… Well, that's the cost of being human."

"You mean this is because of the demon summoning program?" Instead of because Abel had been turned into a demon?

"I'm not fond of repeating myself," Naoya said, or rather repeated, as Abel moved a little and Naoya stroked his hair soothingly, automatically, like a mother so used to looking after a sick child. "It's his business, not yours, although you'll probably insist on hearing it as a matter of natural security. At least show enough consideration to wait until he's awake and I've verified that the traditional method will work, at least long enough for me to find whatever bug is making this necessary."

"So it is something to do with the demon summoning program." Fushimi turned to his subordinate. "Izuna, ask them to shut down use of the demon summoning program for now."

"Yes, sir."

"You haven't done that already?" Naoya didn't sound all that surprised: well, it wasn't like the government had any sense.

"If use of the demon summoning program harmed him, then it should have been at its worst after he absorbed Babel, while we were hunting down the rogue tamers who refused to hand in their comps," Fushimi told him. Even once the comps were rendered useless, they couldn't have samples of that technology in enemy hands, and some of them had demons who could appear without the comps.

Naoya closed his eyes and sighed to himself. "Of course he was fine then, when blood was being shed in his name."

"What?" Atsuro demanded, shocked. "Naoya… I thought you said he wasn't… I mean, I get why you're giving him blood to replenish his magical power," when there weren't any angels around, not after Remiel left Amane's body and it fell to the ground, dead without a soul, "but are you saying he was feeding on all that bloodshed? How is that not a demon?"

"I said he wasn't a _demon_, Atsuro," Naoya reminded him. "He is still human, but that doesn't make him any less of a_ god_. And gods require sacrifice. Just like his grandfather."

Atsuro and Fushimi stared. Naoya sighed. "_He_," he said, glaring up at the ceiling, "feeds on blood, death and pain. Every time someone made a prayer to him in ancient times, they had to sacrifice a lamb, a brace of cattle, two doves at the absolute minimum, cutting them open and draining every drop of blood from their bodies in accordance with _his _orders. Blood sacrifices are still made in _his_ name every time someone is killed in a holy war, executed for heresy or disobedience to his commands, or an animal is slaughtered in the kosher tradition. All this death and suffering in_ his _name grants him power. My cousin is Abel's reincarnation: the grandson of a monster who preys on humanity, who tends us like a shepard tends his sheep so that he may slaughter and feed on us in due course. My brother is kinder than _he _is, but that cursed blood still flows in our veins. I thought my program had succeeded in allowing him to feed purely on emotion harvested from the internet, replenishing the power used by the demon summoning program that way. It seems I made a mistake somewhere. Don't worry: he didn't require war or chaos when he was the King of Bel, even without my program to supplement his power. Even if I can't get the magatsuhi power flow to work without any physical sacrifice to use as a catalyst, or a power converter, it won't interfere with him living the normal life you've wanted him to have, Atsuro."

Naoya laughed when he saw Fushimi's expression, closing his eyes. "Disgusted, are we? Don't you know that _no _human can survive without death and bloodshed? Animals are slaughtered, plants are ripped from the earth so that you may live. All of humanity descends from_ him_: that's why we can't survive in the demon world, since divine essence cannot exist in that place. Whenever you eat, you are gaining the strength to live from the sacrifice of another organism, a sacrifice made for the purpose of sustaining your life. However, in this era of mass production, where food is produced for money instead of people, and so few in this country dirty their hands with soil or blood for the sake of another… Such soulless food, lives sacrificed to money instead of humanity: how could that empty greed sustain a God? Well," he said to himself, although the words were clearly meant for their ears, "at least wealth and prosperity are a better thing to sacrifice for than for our torturer to gain more power." He stifled a yawn. "Atsuro? Fetch me some water."

"Sure, Naoya," Atsuro said, hurrying. How big was that cut? How much blood was Naoya losing?

When he handed Naoya the cup, the programmer tossed it down and then pushed it at Atsuro pointedly. "The soup, this time," he told Atsuro as his minion headed back to the kitchen. "If he doesn't wake up in another couple of minutes, someone had better authorize me to use my comp," since otherwise, he'd just go ahead and do it anyway. "I'd prefer it if he was awake while I went into his mind to see where the problem with the magatsuhi conduit is, but I may not have a choice. If that happens, I'll want you with me, Atsuro, and Captain Izuna as well. Trespassing on someone's soul is far from safe even at the best of times, and since he was being drained of strength by an outside agency connected to his soul his mental defenses must already be roused."

"Going into someone's mind with the comp? You can do that?" Atsuro asked him.

"Yes, I thought it would come in handy to have that function… No, not for this, I didn't think this would happen," he reminded Atsuro when his apprentice got stars in his eyes again, awed by Naoya's genius. "Since I knew the Founder placed Jezebel inside his daughter, I programmed in this capability so that we could go into her mind and kill Jezebel there without killing the priestess and motivating the Shomonkai to attack us. Unfortunately Belberith killed his servant, and Amane with her, before I could make that happen. _Someone _convinced my brother to spend that morning hunting me down and making me program something for fools instead of listening to my advice and helping subdue Amane." _Atsuro_.

After Atsuro fetched Naoya a third cup of soup Naoya put it down after drinking only half of it. That left Atsuro with nothing to do but stand there and keep glancing at them as Izuna returned. Watching how Naoya held Abel, how Atsuro's friend's lips were fastened to Naoya's shoulderblade. It wasn't like Naoya was pouring that blood down his throat: Abel was _drinking _it with every appearance of eagerness, and the way Naoya held him…

"Naoya?"

"Hmm?" Naoya didn't even open his eyes to answer, hand still stroking Abel's head.

"Remiel called you the one who resurrects, so you reincarnate, right? Are you always a guy?"

"Have I ever been a woman, you mean. Normally no, except for one string of lives when Sariel got the idea that women were more docile and keeping me in that form would make me more obedient to God, or rather easier to intimidate." Naoya snorted, full of contempt for that idea, the angel who had it and how little those creatures knew about humanity.

"Have you ever been a mother?" Atsuro asked, regretting it as soon as those words passed his lips.

"Atsuro," Naoya said after a moment, "never study history. You don't want to know how humans used to live, no thanks to_ him_. Not when you already have nightmares about the Lockdown. What I will tell you is that yes, I have raised children. Hundreds of them, not to mention all the times when my brother was reborn without his memories. Did you really need to ask?" When he'd taken Atsuro under his wing in this life? "And then they die, most of them without even reaching what passes for adulthood these days." He sighed. "This is why I don't answer questions about my past. I hate being pitied. If you're capable of making noises like that, then you're capable of waking up," he said to Abel, before pulling something else out of his sleeve.


	3. Philios

Opening the small bottle near Abel's nose almost made the teenager jump out of his skin: he did jump to his feet. "What _is _that?" he demanded, breathing hard as though he was calming down from a panic.

"Something like smelling salts," Naoya said, closing the bottle again as Abel dropped back to his knees in a mostly-coordinated way, too tired to keep standing after he calmed down.

Blue eyes glared, undaunted by Naoya's red. "I nearly had a heart attack!"

"It did that to me once," Naoya reminisced. "In my defense, I hadn't had any of the normal symptoms of a weak heart that time… Oh, don't look at me like that, brother. Captain Izuna over there has recarm, and if you hadn't woken up I would have had to take Atsuro into deadly danger in order to save your life, so stop glaring and be grateful."

"Why do you even _have _something like that?" Abel demanded, because that was what he was really mad about.

"For when I really need to stay awake," Naoya admitted shamelessly.

"_Nao_ya…" Abel knew it.

Naoya just messed up Abel's blue hair. "Atsuro, there's a first aid kit in the bathroom."

"Never mind, there's one here," Fushimi said, clearing his throat and pointing at what they'd brought in with the stretcher.

Abel looked at Naoya. First aid… "I _bit _you?" What just happened?

"Cousin, you should be able to tell the difference between a bite and a cut by now," Naoya said, putting pressure on the wound before the blood could get on his shirt: Abel hadn't let much escape his lips while he was still drinking. "And no, _I _cut _myself_. A willing sacrifice has more power."

"Power? Like angel blood?" Abel frowned. "Is that why I felt so tired? Something was draining my energy?"

"Yes. The demon summoning program. And powerful gods tend to have fast metabolisms, which is why Loki can drink his weight in alcohol every day without coming to resemble a keg of mead himself. According to Atsuro, you were eating more. Most lesser gods haven't been that bothered by having fewer worshippers since the sheer number of people living today mean that so many people who know their names can make up for a smaller number of believers, but when y-" Naoya suppressed a yawn, one Atsuro wondered about. The timing seemed a little convenient: was he about to talk about the King of Bel, who was sort of Abel's past lives, or Abel-Abel, the one killed by Cain?

"I set up Babel to get the power it needed from the thoughts and emotions of the internet and there wasn't any trouble. However, Babel was purely an entity of thoughts and emotions, while you have a physical body. You may need some physical sacrifice as a component, or anchor to convert that bodiless energy into magatsuhi… think MP," Naoya said, even though that was clearly the 'for dummies' explanation. "Without that, your body was sacrificing _itself _so that humanity could prosper through the use of your power." He suppressed another yawn and drank the other half of the cup of soup. "Water in a clean cup this time, Atsuro. As for you, Abel, the King of Bel fell in battle defending this world: don't try to tell me you'll be fine, that you won't sacrifice even your own life to help these people, because Captain Izuna here _already had to cast recarm on you_ after you sacrificed too much of your body for it to continue to survive."

Abel wasn't going to apologize for that, and Naoya let off glaring at him after a moment, and didn't bother to make any 'if you _ever _do that again' threats, because it wasn't like Abel was going to apologize or those threats were going to have any effect. "I'll try to see if there's a way around that," Naoya told him, "but for now you're staying here, so I can prepare your food myself. Convenient that I finally managed to find a way to grow vegetables, although I suppose I'll have to have to raise some chickens and have live fish delivered."

"Vegetables, chicken, fish?" That sounded okay: too okay, because "What about that?" Abel demanded, pointing at Naoya's shoulder. "And can I have that first aid kit?" Izuna was just hovering, because Naoya hadn't actually given her any permission to touch him and Abel was in Naoya's face to the point he was still half on his lap, which meant she'd need to intrude on two people's personal space.

"Of course," she said, passing it to him.

"And what about healing magic?" Abel asked. "Can't you cast diarama, if you have recarm? And why did you ask for a first aid kit?" he asked Naoya, already pushing Naoya's haori off his shoulders. Atsuro wondered if he even a little disappointed when Naoya didn't react to the sting of the disinfectant.

Atsuro also wondered how he knew that Izuna had diarama. Was he channeling Naoya? Was it because he contained the server? Could he see what skills people set?

Well, she wasn't really good enough at magic for diarahan, Atsuro realized as he poured water from one of the ceramic pitchers in the fridge into a cup, and sending her with just dia? Or nothing but recarm, for that matter, when Fushimi wasn't a demon tamer?

"Because she should save the energy for you: you're the one who _died_," Naoya told him. "Because of _my _mistake." How was Naoya going to feel if Abel died and stayed dead because of this? "Drink," he told Abel when Atsuro brought the water. "Seeing how long it takes you to need another sacrifice should give me some clues."

Abel paused long enough to toss it down before getting back to work, determinedly focused on getting that cut sealed up. Or sealed away? Did it tempt him? Was he hungry for blood?

Like Kudlak?

Atsuro managed not to shudder at the thought of Abel turning into any demon, much less a vampire.

"What's bothering you now?" Naoya was the one to ask Abel.

Abel touched his lips, hesitating before wiping them, just to make sure he'd gotten rid of all of it. "It didn't taste anything like blood."

"Oh?"

"What's with that reaction?" If that was a bad sign, Naoya wouldn't just seem sort of academically curious.

"What did it taste like, then?"

"That time you got a truffle," with the paycheck from one of his first programming jobs, when Naoya was still living at home, "and had all of us smell the bottle it came in."

"So… indescribable? That is the word most commonly used to describe the taste of truffles. Although you said it was a little like chocolate," Naoya reminisced. "Not in the details, but the sensation. I'm flattered, but really, I suppose I'm glad."

"That I like it?" Abel gave him a look, because since that was not a good thing.

"No, because it didn't make you think of blood," Naoya smiled, clearly with no intention of explaining that cryptic comment.

"So I'll know it if you try to slip blood into anything you cook," Abel warned him.

"What you were really tasting," Naoya informed him, "was what you were really feeding on: the emotion and power behind the physical sacrifice. Since I'll be harvesting and preparing your food until I'm certain this is fixed, just be grateful you'll be tasting truffles instead of blood in everything."

"So I'll have to watch you to be sure you aren't slipping blood into everything." Abel folded his arms, done, but not moving from Naoya's lap. Instead he leaned forward, peering into his eyes: he'd be watching him closely.

"Perfect. I've wanted a captive audience to show my garden off to. Just be grateful there won't be any weeding, cousin," Naoya told him, taking the opportunity to ruffle his hair again. "Now, eat. Atsuro watched me while I prepared all of this. Even though you should now be properly metabolizing all the power you're gaining from the internet, you _are _still human, just like you wanted, and humans don't consume magical energy and use it to heal themselves, on top of all the weight you've lost."

"Right," Abel said, rolling his eyes a little.

Naoya pushed Abel off him now. "I'll e-mail my secretary a shopping list," he said, standing up. "Make sure you get plenty of the small carrots: they're from my garden," he told his brother. "I'm going to bed."

"Because of me?"

"No, because I pulled an all-nighter on my garden and I want to be sure I'm well-rested enough to think on my feet before going into _your mind _to do tech support on a system of unprecedented power," if Naoya did say so himself. "Commander Fushimi, Captain Izuna," he said, turning towards them. "Thank you for bringing my brother here so quickly, and taking care of him on the way."

The commander was almost taken aback by Naoya being courteous to him, even bowing slightly without a trace of irony, as opposed to how he normally treated the government dog. "Think nothing of it," was all he could say, after clearing his throat. "It was my duty." Protecting the citizens of Japan, especially a hero so vital to their national security.

"Even so," Naoya said, nodding. "You have my thanks, and an invitation to… brunch, at this point. I will require the services of Captain Izuna sometime this evening, after I've set up the equipment, and Abel, Atsuro and I will need to use our comps for self-defense as well. I hope you didn't have other plans." There was nothing as important as his brother's health, and now the smirk showed: was that what pleased him? The government dogs fetching Abel here on Naoya's orders, acting on behalf of the boy Naoya had tried to set up as a demon overlord? And possibly not just the ruler of the demons…

Currently, acting as liaison to the former demon tamers and the people still involved in this incident was Commander Fushimi's job, so he wasn't quite able to form a response to that until after Naoya picked up his haori and swept out of the room.

Abel was already in the kitchen opening cupboards. "Did you see where he keeps the plates?" he asked Atsuro.

"Oh, sure, let me help you get everything out." Atsuro hastened to help his friend, because even though it was great to see Abel back to his old self and energetic again, after the past couple of days, Atsuro didn't want him to strain himself or anything.

"I'll make a preliminary report and get authorization for comp usage," Commander Fushimi said finally, glancing at Izuna. Did she want to trust that food? The creator of the demon summoning program had no reason to antagonize them, not when he could be removed from this location and his precious greenhouse at Fushimi's discretion – at least he'd paid for the construction and all the equipment himself instead of extorting funding from the government in the name of keeping him happy enough to be willing to continue to work with them – but even though Fushimi now had more of a full understanding of the tactical situation that led to the Lockdown, Naoya had made the cold-blooded decision to put so many of Tokyo's citizens at risk… but so had the government itself. The fate of the country, no, the world had been at stake.

Abel, Minegeshi Kazuya, was the true hero of the Lockdown, the War of Bel and the Ordeal, but at this point, only time would tell if the Founder and the programmer of the demon summoning program would also come to be regarded as heroes, who had acted to protect humanity from a war brewing in the Underworld. The harmonizer, the healing spells: Naoya had armed them, allowed humans to protect themselves and survive against vastly more powerful creatures. Even if demons were not used in war, the harmonizer alone could allow a man to endure multiple headshots. As for the miracle cures recarm and other spells could perform? Obviously proper testing was required, but Naoya's technology had rendered almost the entire medical profession and all extant medical technology obsolete.

And from what he'd mentioned when asked to set up a means by which individuals could be licensed to use healing skills and nothing else, the world _used to have this_?

"Don't take too long, or else I might eat everything," Abel said cheerfully. "Naoya's a really good cook, and the food in the Lockdown wasn't exactly great." Abel was basically allowed to ask for anything he wanted since his family was still in protective custody, but home-cooked was home-cooked.

"Didn't that upset your stomach?" Izuna asked.

"Oh, the blood?" Abel shrugged. "You didn't use any angels, did you? Since you weren't a magician. Yuzu and I… We had to get used to it, until we got our hands on some tyrants. I was looking forward to not having to do that anymore, but I was pretty sick, so as long as it's a one-time thing?" He shrugged again. "Just as long as I'm not turning into a vampire or something. If that happened I'd kick Naoya's ass again and make him fix it, but I can't do that if he's dead because he let me drain him dry, or gave himself a heart attack or something." He paused. "I just realized something. That's so Naoya."

"What is? Specifically," Atsuro asked, getting more glasses.

"The blood wine race skill. Forcing angels to sacrifice their own energy to benefit humans, and I mean, blood _wine_? I bet he did that just to torture them. Well, half to torture them," Abel said, smiling. "It was a real lifesaver. Remember Belberith and Babel?"

Atsuro nodded. "I was fine, but I got tired just watching you two. Oh, dude! Remember when Midori got drunk?"

"And we couldn't even be sure she was really doing that because she was drunk until the next morning," Abel told Izuna, grinning. "A lot of people fused angels just for that, although Gin said the harmonizer made it harder to get drunk."

"That was in kind of bad taste, after the bloodless murders," Atsuro said, frowning and clearly thinking of Mari Mochizuki and the vampire that killed her fiancée. "Drinking from angels in front of people like that… Some of the yakuza were even selling the stuff!"

Izuna winced in sympathy. It wasn't like the government was bringing alcohol into the lockdown, and she knew that after what she'd seen in there she'd certainly needed a good stiff drink with some of her comrades. Still, humans paying to drink blood?

Acting like demons and animals… that was the lockdown, that was what happened when people realized that their government no longer protected them and started just trying to survive.

When he put the last serving dish down on the table, Atsuro grew more serious instead of digging in the way Abel already was. "What if he can't fix it?"

"Come on, Atsuro. This is Naoya we're talking about," Abel said after he swallowed.

"I wanted all of us to be able to go back to living a normal life, but this happened because of my idea, with the server. Maybe Gin was right." Atsuro sighed, toying with the contents of the plate he'd been eating from before they got here.

"No, he wasn't," Abel said firmly. "Honda's son. A lot of other people. They'd be dead now if it weren't for your idea. This power: it can do so much to help people, and tossing the baby out with the bathwater is just stupid. But think about what Kaido wanted to do: we couldn't just let people do whatever they wanted with it. Even _Naoya _thought that this power should be regulated by the government, he just, you know, thought I should be the government. Sure, they're not perfect," Abel and Atsuro were both in the Lockdown: they knew that. Then there was the UEM field, and the angels…

"But if I'd gone with his idea," Abel continued, gesturing with his chopsticks, "either I would have gone to the demon world to fight right away, and then I'd have had to shut down the demon summoning program here because I wouldn't have had time to figure out how to regulate it so people didn't run around killing each other, or I would have stayed here and people would have worried about the power I wielded, so they'd have to attack me, and then I'd have to defend myself with a demon army, and remember history class? All those alliances? If I wanted to take over the world, I would have teamed up with Kaido." He nodded to himself: to him, it was really simple. "If I'd become the demon overlord, I couldn't have stayed here with you guys. This way even if Naoya's right and the angels decide to start something again, we have the technology. And it's better if people who already _have _armies and organizations and all of that have it, instead of me taking over and having to build all that up again from scratch. Your plan was the one that would save the most people's lives over the long run. Even Naoya would admit it, if he didn't hate the idea that a government that knuckled under to the angels is getting to control _my _power."

"I guess, but…" Atsuro half-shrugged, still looking down at his plate.

"Well, what were my options? There was Naoya's idea, Kaido's… Sure, Yuzu's plan was a good one for breaking the Lockdown, but after we broke the Lockdown, then what? It wouldn't have done anything about the angels, demons or demon tamers – we still would have had three wars on our hands." The War of Bel, the Ordeal and the angry tamers going after the government. "If I'd gone with Remiel, I'd have been conquering the world anyway, just so that someone else could rule it. And Gin's idea… sure, a lot of people died because of demons, but what about Honda's son and all the people who die in stupid accidents all the time? I couldn't have lived with myself if I kept seeing accidents on the news and thinking, 'If they just had dia and recarm, those people would be alive now.' And while I was in the hospital this morning, the doctor they called in, he's one of the people who's working with the healing spells, and amrita works on viruses, just like those flies!" Abel grinned. "Once you guys get the bugs worked out and people start using the healing spells, all over the world? Come on, Atsuro, you know we did the right thing."

"You _died_," Atsuro said, gripping his chopsticks tightly enough one of them suddenly snapped. "Whoops… Right, Izuna's comp is active, so the harmonizer's running. Guess I forgot my own strength." He smiled sheepishly, putting the fragments of the ceramic chopstick down carefully. "It's just weird, you know? Watching you drink Naoya's blood like that was freaky, but I remember, in the lockdown… it became normal so fast. I just… I didn't want that to _stay _normal." Wanted to put all the things they'd been driven to do in order to survive behind them.

"Come on, have some," Abel said to Izuna. "It's good."

"Sorry for making you talk," Atsuro apologized, ducking his head and finally having to adjust his hat, since hanging his head so much had made it start to slide forward, over his eyes. "You've got to be starving."

"Actually," Abel told him, "I feel really full, like after carb loading for a track meet. But Naoya's probably right that it's just MP, so I still need to eat. It helps that this is really good." His hand snapped forward, chopsticks deftly snatching the carrot that remained on Atsuro's plate.

"You were in track?" Izuna asked him, pulling out a chair and sitting down herself.

He nodded, swallowing. "Just until Naoya moved out. After that I started focusing on music club. I mean, I missed him when he moved to Aoyama, but I didn't miss having to get up thirty minutes earlier than necessary _every single day_ to go walking with Dad and the dogs." Mr. Minegeshi trained police and service dogs. "I kind of let myself go after that: once he was gone, Mom and Dad didn't really have the heart to keep forcing me to seriously exercise, since I needed to focus on entrance exams anyway."

"So he was training you?" Izuna asked. "Trying to prepare you for what he knew was coming." Instead of warning any proper authorities: demonstrating that he could summon demons… No, Izuna knew, that might just have resulted in him getting locked up, unable to help his brother or do what was necessary.

"Not really _training _me," Abel told her. "Not for anything specific. I mean, it was my dad that taught me basic self-defense," since he was a police officer. "He could have taught me how to summon demons, or tried to… He could have done a lot of stuff." His deep blue eyes were distant for a moment. "He'd just help me learn to figure things out for my classes, make sure I brushed my teeth and stayed healthy… He's always been looking out for me. Huh, I guess always is the right word…" He shook his head, refusing to think dark thoughts.

"He said that Babel was a great cloud of thoughts," Atsuro said reluctantly. "And Loki said that it was from the King of Bel when he was killed by God, didn't he? Naoya might not have needed to train you, just make sure you'd survive the Lockdown. The other Bels… They weren't you." They were demons, they weren't Atsuro's friend. "Babel wasn't you either. If you'd become a demon, then you might have been taken over by the original King of Bel. By all those memories."

Abel frowned, looking caught between sympathy and anger. With a dash of 'seriously?' "Atsuro, weren't you paying attention to all those lectures about programming? Come on, you're his number one student, not me, and _I've _heard it a hundred times: it's not just a matter of _doing _it, it's doing it _right_. Because if you do it wrong, then sometimes it's worse than useless and you usually have to spend more time fixing things than if you'd done it right the first time."

He leaned forward over the table. "Come on, Atsuro. Do you really think Naoya would make his plan, _his entire plan_, hinge around doing something he'd _hate_? You heard him talk about the angels and free will and Amane. Setting me up to be possessed, just erased? Even by another version of his brother? I'm not saying that Naoya won't do terrible things if there's no alternative, but he was planning this for longer than we've been alive, so he had time to _make _alternatives. He would have been trying to bring about a _best case scenario_, not something like _that_. If me becoming the King of Bel was what he wanted to happen, then I knew it wasn't something that would hurt me," Abel told Atsuro, as though there wasn't a single doubt in his mind. "Not when he's, you know, got _issues._ He might have set things up so that I'd kill the other Bels, but that's the thing: they're not me, and _I'm _his brother." Abel nodded. "Remember what you said when the devil auction started, all those other features? He did all of this to keep us alive. If the thoughts in Babel were enough of a person for him to care, then he would have built the server into a robot or something, so he'd have a body."

Abel paused. "Actually, that sounds kind of cool. Robo-me. The Bels were a bunch of bastard demons, but if Naoya liked the King of Bel version of me enough to think I should rule the world, then I can't have been that bad. The Bels were only fragments of my soul, too, so even if I was a demon back then I probably wasn't anything like them."

"Since you were complete." Atsuro nodded: yeah, that made sense. "It's kind of weird to think that you only had part of a soul the entire time I knew you. I mean, you're my best friend." Anything but soulless.

"Loki said that the other parts of me went to the demon world because I hated God for killing me… twice," really. "All of me went to the demon world the first time, but the second time part of me kept incarnating here. I think," Abel said, "No. I'm sure that was to be near Naoya. He's the older one, he was born first, so I must have reincarnated as his cousin in order to find him. How do you think he'd have felt if I'd died in the Lockdown? And I died when I was the King of Bel, killed by God, so he must already feel that way… No, he's felt that way all along. I think… No." He shook his head, reaching up to touch his headphones. "I _know_ I was worried about him. As long as he had a piece of me to look after, then he wouldn't feel like he'd failed so hard as a big brother. I must have been worried, when I died. About what was going to happen to him. To everyone, if I was a king and had an entire kingdom that I was responsible for. Sariel, the angels… Remiel was alright, but you heard what Sariel said about him, about humans. The angels weren't going to leave him alone. If part of me kept being reborn as a powerless human instead of going back to the demon world and trying to get stronger so that _this _time I'd have enough power to protect everyone, then it was definitely for Naoya's sake. Because otherwise he'd have been alone."

With that Abel went back to his food, and neither of them felt they had the right to press him for more. Izuna because even though she wasn't quite a stranger to them, she wasn't a part of this, this family, and Atsuro because, because Naoya. And Abel. His teacher, his mentor, his big brother and his best friend. He found himself feeling like an intruder now, felt like a terrible idiot for thinking about Naoya that way. Thinking he'd do something like that.

He should have had faith in Naoya, even in the lockdown. For the first few days he'd thought about _why _Naoya was doing this, but then he'd gotten caught up in everything, in the matter of survival, and even started to see Abel's brother as an enemy? As _Abel's _enemy?

Awkward silence reigned, save for the sounds of Abel eating, until Atsuro managed to clear his throat and ask Izuna if she wanted tea or something.

For all his geeky awkwardness, Atsuro was a blooded warrior who had killed demons with his bare hands, and Abel? Was the reincarnation of a god's descendant. The reincarnation of a demon god.

And a good man.


	4. In the Shade of the Tower

"If it's my mind and I'll be coming with you, then why did you preload my comp with skills like these?" Abel wanted to know after Naoya gave him back his comp – he must have got it from Fushimi. Phys Repel, Anti-All and Null Mystic? Abel knew that being an overprotective big brother was Naoya's thing, after the way he'd watched them summon their first demons and then lured them into another battle so he could make sure they were learning properly, but this was a purely defensive setup. Far too defensive for Abel's taste: Drain, Prayer and Shield All? Sure, Abel could do a fair amount of damage with Drain, but unless Naoya had a good reason for this Abel was switching out Shield All for Holy Dance, since Naoya preferred Megidolaon, Atsuro and Izuna weren't magicians and Midori wasn't here to rock-paper-scissors him for it.

Naoya had his glasses on, peering down at the wiring and clearly doing one last check. "Now that you're awake we won't have to worry about your mental defenses attacking us, but there's a part of you that you don't control. Everyone has a part of themselves that they lock away inside their souls: the thoughts they refuse to think, the feelings they refuse to feel, the desires they refuse to acknowledge. I didn't take those 'Shadows' into consideration when I originally designed this system because Jezebel would have already eaten the priestess' Shadow. Lucky for us, Shadows tend to attack their creators when given the chance. So, you and the captain can keep it occupied while Atsuro and I examine the flow of power through your soul."

"So I'll be fighting _another _part of me?" Abel asked him. Wow, déjà vu.

"You'll probably hear some things about yourself you don't want to hear, but keep in mind that everyone has feelings of hatred, of resentment: even God and his angels have plenty of flaws and pettiness. Your shadow is a part of you, but it's what you refuse to be." Naoya smiled to himself. "And you're already wondering what my shadow is like, aren't you? I faced it a long time ago: I couldn't afford to be divided against myself when _they _ruthlessly exploit every flaw we possess. The true means of overcoming your shadow is to accept it, since a problem can't be solved, a flaw can't be fixed until you acknowledge that it is there, so you can see this as an opportunity for persona growth, I suppose. Or you could turn up the volume on your headphones to drown it out, either way." He shrugged and took his glasses off, folding the up and hanging them in their usual place. "Now, lie down. You two as well," he said, sitting down himself.

Atsuro settled nervously onto one of the futons. "What will happen to our bodies while we're in there?"

"They'll be empty vessels: that's why I set up this warding circle." Naoya gestured at the diagram he'd drawn around the futons. "You'll still be connected to them, and any wounds incurred there will appear on your bodies. Healing and revival spells cast on you there will also work on your bodies, _except_."

"Except?" Izuna asked.

"We'll be inside Abel's mind, so if he dies, we all die. In addition to that, there are some things I couldn't program into the system, and I'm the only one with the training to do them. If I die, all of us but Abel will be disconnected from our bodies. In theory, the two of you _might _be able to find your way back and stay in there long enough for Abel to cast recarm while you're in there, but I get snatched up instantly every time I die outside my body." Naoya grimaced. "We shouldn't encounter any enemies there but Abel's shadow, so if it weren't for the fact I'm another vulnerability and I want to show Atsuro the system in case I die and he needs to do future tech support, I'd have him guard you as well, brother."

"So I'll keep that skill setup, then," Abel decided, tabbing out of there and selecting his demons as he sat cross-legged on the futon. "A vile, I think…" So the Shadow couldn't attack from outside his range that easily. "A wilder to start with, just in case," it was one of the powerful ones with a huge range. "Take avians or genma, you two." To make sure that they could get out of wherever the battle took place.

Naoya just snorted: as though he needed the advice of someone who had only a week's worth of experience fighting demons. He sat cross-legged, the pose reminding them of that adopted by monks who intended to meditate for hours without moving. "When the three of you are ready."

* * *

"Wow." Atsuro turned, looking at the meadow that spread out all around them. "It looks kind of like the real world, but…" He could see for _miles_, and there were no houses, no telephone poles, no signs of human habitation at all. Just grass, rocks, a forest and a single mountain _way _in the distance.

"What's this?" Abel asked, and that was when Atsuro saw the huge freaking door right behind them, made out of gold and studded with gems and plates of semi-precious stone, with all sorts of fancy carvings on it. So much for this place not having anything made by humans in it.

"The King's Gate," Naoya told him. "Your memories of your previous lives and most of your power are on the other side."

"Wait, if that's Babel, and the server is on the other side, then what happens if we open it?" Atsuro asked, worried, because it sounded like the stuff they needed to look at was on the other side.

"Don't worry: I brought a genma. We can pass through the gate without opening it," Naoya told his student, touching his hand to the warm gold, feeling the power and warmth that radiated from it. "There's no need to look at me so nervously, Atsuro. My brother has made his decision." And that was that.

"So where's the shadow?" Atsuro asked, eyeing the forest and one of the larger rocks. Wait, was that a bloodstain on that rock?

Naoya restrained a sigh. "Well, now that you've given it an invitation, I'm sure it will be here any-" And that was when a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the gate.

"Naoya!" Half a cry of surprise, half an angry demand that whoever had taken Naoya had better return him. Abel ran forward, trying to grab the trailing end of Naoya's robe, but it was already too late.

Blue eyes glared at the gate.

It opened.

"Abel!" Atsuro yelled as his friend ran through it, knowing even as he said it that it was pointless. Abel wasn't going to let Naoya get hurt, especially when Atsuro and Izuna were in danger too unless they got Naoya back.

Telling the part of his mind that was wondering of Naoya had predicted this, had set this up to shut up, Atsuro ran after him. Izuna was already through the gate, trying to grab Abel and pull him back.

A throne room.

Not marble: not a trace of marble (the stone used for altars because it would soak up blood), even though there were so many other kinds of stone here Atsuro had to wonder if the absence was deliberate. The ceiling that arched high overhead was made of cloudy blue glass, with patches of grey and white for clouds and a sun in glory right above the throne, tinting the dais with golden light.

Atsuro was pretty sure the engineering and chemistry here were a little advanced for thousands and thousands of years ago, but if they'd had demons and healing spells who knew how much knowledge had been lost? Well, of course Naoya did, but still.

What had to be the shadow was lounging on the throne, which wasn't a high-backed chair but a chaise lounge instead. One leg was sprawled out, while the other was pulled in so he could brace an elbow on it, resting his chin on that hand. He was dressed just like Abel except for the black cape, which was a little weird. It didn't exactly match the setting, and the headphones weren't quite a crown.

"Don't even think about it," the shadow said dismissively when they were halfway across the room. Abel stopped in his tracks when a knife appeared in the shadow's left hand and his right, already on Naoya's head, grabbed that silver hair to pull his head back. "Naoya is _mine_. How _dare _he move out? How dare he pretend that he has a life of his own when his life is _mine_?"

Naoya didn't move, didn't resist, just knelt there. Atsuro knew instantly that something was wrong. Naoya was always thinking, always observing: his expression was _never _blank. Those red eyes shouldn't be vacant like this.

"What did you do to him?" Abel demanded.

"What did we do to him, you mean. Didn't he tell you? I _am _you." The shadow laughed, almost caressing Naoya's throat with the flat of the blade. "Except I'm not a coward. You're too afraid to seize control of you power. You want those meaningless mortals to _like _you, so you hide from the truth. The truth in our name! We are The Master, the Lord of Lords, King of Kings! Everything and everyone is our property, and you knew it all along! Trying to fit in, trying to be a normal student, to pretend to care about Featherman and idol singers, when all the while I _knew _that I was superior! That the other children were just that, children, not my equals. Never my equals. That the highest honor they could ever attain was to be my pawn, and hope to advance in my favor! Not that they could ever replace _him_." Dear, dear Naoya: the hand that had almost torn out some of that hair now caressed his cheek.

He looked down at him dotingly, gloatingly. "_My _cousin, my dear _sweet_ oni-chan, who would always give me anything I asked for. Do anything I wanted: he'd do his best to push me into doing what was good for me, but it was always up to me, wasn't it? He knew better than to insist, than to tell me no. Naoya always knew his _place_, by my side, he was supposed to be mine forever and then he moved out! How dare he! I knew he was my property, and I was right! My blood on his hands, my brand in his flesh, in his very soul!"

Abel couldn't help taking a step forward in alarm when the shadow used that knife to slice through the front of Naoya's shirt, but at least there wasn't any blood. Atsuro watched the shadow slowly slide the fabric down off Naoya's shoulders, letting it pool behind him like his fallen robe.

That, over his heart? Was that what the shadow meant by brand? Atsuro hoped that mark wasn't there in the real world: it wasn't there when Naoya took them to the pool that time, but that was before he'd moved out. His parents, or aunt and uncle technically, would have flipped.

"Naoya," the shadow said, stroking Naoya's collarbone with the tip of its index finger. "Qin. See that woman there?" The shadow slid that knife down Naoya's back, placed it into his hands, bent to speak into his ear. "I want her heart, Brother. Make of it an offering to me. Stain your hands with blood in the name of your God, as you did long ago. But unlike Him, _I _will grant you my love and favor in exchange for doing my will, as you did his that day."

Naoya shuddered, red eyes still unfocused. His hand curled around the hilt of the dagger.

"Don't listen, Naoya," Abel said, glaring daggers of his own at the shadow, as Atsuro noticed finally that its half-lidded eyes were yellow, not a demon's red. "He's not me, just like Belberith wasn't me! You don't need to… You don't need to _do _anything so that I'll care about you! You're my cousin, Naoya, you're my family!"

"And _he _was our grandfather," the shadow said, smirking as he stroked Naoya's back. "I am a god, and gods demand _obedience_." He laughed. "Making that face… What a hypocrite. You know that's why you like Naoya. He'd make you lunches, help you with your homework, stay home from school to attend you when you were sick no matter how much trouble he got in… Any gift we wanted was ours just for the hinting, but it wasn't about the toys, was it? It was the fact he would get them for us. It pleased you, because you knew that was how he _should _act, wasn't it? How everyone should act. I am a _god!" _he said, glaring at Izuna and Atsuro, the power and will radiating from him almost enough to make even survivors of the Lockdown take a step back. "Why won't you all kneel?! How _dare _you try to cage me and my servants?" he demanded of Izuna. "I should have killed you then and there, for daring to point a gun at me, to bear a weapon in the presence of your god and king!"

Standing behind Abel, Atsuro could see him fiddling with his comp behind his back the entire time, pressing buttons to set something up, so he was ready to move when Abel surged forward, his fist hitting the shadow's stomach hard enough to knock him off that throne. Even if Abel mostly used magic since it was more versatile, with the harmonizer up he was still strong enough to bitchslap a god into submission with a cellphone strap.

Or to drop down to kneel on one, jabbing one knee into its stomach, grabbing its collar and ignoring how it tried to reach up to claw at his arms. "Don't think that being a part of me will protect you," Abel said, voice low and dangerous as Atsuro grabbed Naoya's forearm, trying to get that knife away from him until he returned to his senses. "I won't let _any _piece of me hurt anyone else, never again. Jezebel killed Amane, Belberith accepted the Founder's sacrifice and didn't even _care_: Hell, God was pleased by my sacrifice, wasn't he? But it wasn't enough for _him_, he turned right around and was so cruel to my brother, trying to provoke him into giving that bastard some more blood! You're right: I wanted Naoya to stay with me! I could tell he was always so sad under there! I'd ask him to do things for me because that made him happy! He moved out and then, in the Lockdown, he was watching over me but he kept running away! He wouldn't confide in me or let me help him! Sure, I wanted to control him!" Abel told the shadow, angrier than Atsuro had ever seen him.

"Sure I want to be a God, so that I can protect all of my people! I want them to _listen _to me instead of running off like Midori or doing crazy things like Keisuke, since otherwise they'll get hurt. I _wish _I was a demon sometimes, so I could just do whatever I wanted and not have to worry about the government or what other people think. You're right: I knew I was different, just like Naoya! Even if I didn't remember, everyone seemed so weak, so fragile. So, so _little_. I wanted to look after them, like I wanted to look after Naoya. You're not telling me anything I don't already know!" Abel shook him, hard enough Atsuro winced at the crack of that head on the stone floor: if the harmonizer wasn't up, or this wasn't the mental plane or whatever, that would have given someone a concussion.

"Aren't you supposed to be what I can't accept about myself, or something? If even _Naoya _thought I'd have a hard time hearing what you'd have to say, when he thinks people should just suck it up most of the time… Well, what I _can't _accept is anyone treating my brother like that! Let him go, already." Or _else_, the threat punctuated by a punch to the shadow's face. "At least the other Bel demons didn't think they could wear my face, even if all of them had the gall to think they deserved _my _power when they didn't care at all about what that power was meant to be used for. My brother, my kingd-My _family_." Abel said, and Naoya's hand finally went slack, letting go of that knife.

His head dropped to lean against Atsuro's shoulder, and Atsuro could only hope the puppet's strings had been cut, suddenly conscious of the warmth of Naoya's bare chest… Not just that: Atsuro could feel the burning heat of that brand even though his jacket. Was it hurting him? Was Naoya in pain because he hadn't killed Izuna yet? Atsuro kept expecting the heat to grow worse, for him to have to push Naoya away from him a little so it didn't start to hurt, but it stayed right at that level even though it _should _hurt. Instead it was like reaching his hand towards a fire, keeping it there _right _when it was as hot as he could stand, because the heat felt really good, the way hot springs or lying there in the sun did, the heat soaking into his bones.

That made Atsuro blink his own yellow eyes, look around him again at the throne room, how instead of being built to intimidate, cold and austere, it was like, like the field they'd been in before, huh. A bright summer's day, friezes of people and nature picked out in the colorful stones of the walls. Not scenes of glory or sacrifice, but there a trio of musicians, there a girl scattering grain to feed a pond full of swans.

_His_ people.

What if… The King of Bel really had been _Abel? _What if that mark on Naoya's chest wasn't a curse or a punishment, like the one the Bible said God put on him, but what if it was something to keep him _warm_? It wasn't that Naoya was coldhearted, not exactly, Atsuro knew better than that. He definitely knew that Abel wasn't cruel: that was why he hadn't wanted him to become a demon, even though there wasn't anyone else Atsuro would rather trust with that power, _especially _the government that hunted down 10Bit and Shoji's mentor for trying to find out the truth.

He just hadn't wanted Abel to change. He'd lost his teacher: he hadn't wanted to lose his friend. He'd known that Naoya wasn't normal from the beginning, but Abel? He was Atsuro's first friend his own age, Atsuro's first IRL friend, so maybe he wanted to insist that Abel was a normal person since that meant that Atsuro wasn't totally incompetent at being a normal kid with real friends.

Atsuro _hoped _Abel hadn't just become his friend out of pity, anyway…

"You are me, just the stuff I refuse to do, like looking down on everyone, like hurting Naoya, so don't think you can…" A sound like shattering glass, and Abel dropped a few inches to the floor as the shadow vanished, turning into power that poured into Abel just like all the Bel demons. "Right," Abel said, sounding more annoyed than anything. "Naoya?"

"He let go of the knife," Atsuro told him, "but I don't think he's okay." Naoya wouldn't be leaning on someone if he was okay. "Naoya?" No, why would Naoya respond to him and say he was alright if he hadn't already told Abel that?

Abel stepped on top of the throne and crouched down instead of walking around it, pretty clearly because of irreverence for it and how it was in his way instead of because he wanted to lounge on the thing. "Well, he can't be dead… Prayer."

"Damn," Atsuro said when nothing happened. "I think that mark has something to do with it."

"Let me see," Abel told him, nudging at Atsuro's shoulder, the one Naoya's head was still leaning on. "Lay him down… up here."

"On the throne?" Atsuro asked.

"The floor's stone," Abel said, as though he hadn't just banged a head just like his own into that stone floor… Although Atsuro guessed that would mean Abel knew it had to be pretty hard stuff, if it wasn't busted by getting hit like that with the harmonizer active.

"Do you have any idea what that means?" Abel asked when they could all see the symbol, Izuna joining them on the dais. He tried snapping his fingers in front of Naoya's face, but all that did was make Naoya blink, slowly, and smile just a little at his brother's antics. He was conscious, but definitely not firing on all cylinders.

Atsuro realized that he'd been hoping Abel would know, even though he should be glad Abel wasn't getting memories like that back. Except, under the circumstances? "No. I learned some Akkadian because it was kind of our thing," a code no one would guess but him and Naoya, "but I don't know what that symbol is."

"Can you look it up after we get out of here?" Abel asked, reaching down to pick up Naoya's robe and fish his comp out of one of his sleeves.

"Yeah, but…"

"It's not like we can figure out what's wrong without Naoya. I mean, I don't see anything that looks like electrical wires or pipelines or anything, do you?" Abel asked, waving at the room, most of his attention focused on the comp. "It might not be visible out there, so try and remember what it looks like."

"Wait, what if we can't fix it out there?"

"Well, we can't stay here," Abel said reasonably. "If he's the reason you two can be here safely, and if he dies you'll die, then it's not safe. Don't worry, Atsuro. You'll figure something out." Without giving them another chance to object, Abel just went ahead and hit the A button.

* * *

_If anyone thinks that Kazuya overcame his shadow too easily, this was because Kazuya is an old soul. All the people we see with shadows in P4 are teenagers – of course they don't know themselves very well yet. _

_There's the saying about how you can't know if you love someone or not until you've lived with them for seven years: it takes time to get to know people. Even though Kazuya doesn't consciously remember, he's been himself for so long that his Shadow was barely a shadow of a shadow – there's very little that he can't bear to face, and really, he already knew that stuff about himself. The shadow was what he was rejecting, but none of what it said was a shock, none of what it said was unknown or jarring to him. He already knew he had those character flaws and was working to overcome them._

_Naoya had more trouble with his shadow, but that was millennia ago, not to mention that Naoya has _issues_. It's even part of his official bio on Amane's route._


	5. Peaceful Days Revived

There in order to stand guard, Fushimi was visibly startled when they woke up and Abel started to remove his cousin's shirt and push him down onto the bed. Izuna reported that, "We were attacked by his shadow, sir. It used some kind of spell on his cousin and we were forced to abort the mission."

Removing the shirt revealed three golden ovals, not arranged in an equilateral triangle but a flattened one, with the one on the left a little closer to the middle one than the one on the right.

"I'll go use Naoya's computer," Atsuro said, pushing himself to his feet.

"Wait a minute," Abel said thoughtfully, his hand hovering over Naoya's shoulders as he stared down at that chest. "I was thinking about it all wrong. It's not an ancient memory, or the shadow's, but something about…" He glanced at the window: it might have been a summer day inside his soul, but winter had already started in the real world and the sun went down hours ago. "Crickets." He looked down at the futon. "And I thought he was having a nightmare because his parents had just died, so I went into his room and I just…"

He lay down, head on his brother's chest, and his right hand slid down Naoya's shoulder to rest over his heart.

It rested there for a moment, three fingertips fitting perfectly into those three ovals, and then he kissed Naoya on the forehead in benediction and withdrew his hand. The golden light had vanished, and Naoya's eyes were closed. He sighed, taking Naoya's robe and pulling it over him. "It was supposed to be something to help with his nightmares," he said quietly. "Not give him new ones."

"So that was something _you_ did?" Atsuro asked, a little surprised. "As a kid? Even though you didn't know about magic or anything until now?"

"I did it so automatically, though." Abel pushed his hair back, adjusting his headphones. "I think I must have been doing it for a long time. I think that's why it worked so well: Naoya was used to me doing that, so he let his guard down against that kind of spell, at least coming from me." He'd learned not to resist this specific energy.

"It felt warm," Atsuro told him. "I guess it makes sense that he couldn't really think when it was active, if you did it to stop…" Nightmares. Horrible thoughts. Worse memories. "Whoa, Abel, your hand's glowing!"

"Yeah." It wasn't like Abel hadn't noticed, when he was the one who called that golden glow into his hand. As he examined the light, he thought to himself "Naoya can _fly, _and he's human. I wonder what else people can learn to do, even without the comps? It's not like they had computers back then, and people still had magic. Sure, demon summoning might be rituals and diagrams, but it's energy manipulated… energy _born from _thoughts and emotions," Abel corrected himself. "I wonder if it's really the rituals that have any power, or they just direct and focus it? It's like computer programming, and programming languages aren't magical, they're just languages that were invented to make it easier to tell computers what to do. So were the rituals invented to direct the power of the human will?"

"Well, that would explain why Kaido could summon a demon without a comp. Sure," Atsuro said, thinking about it, "the barrier was down so it was easier to call things from the demon world, but that's still doing magic without a comp, and I don't think the barrier would stop magic that doesn't involve demons. The comps mean that people can do magic without training or having to use their own power, just by pressing a button, but now that people know that magic is _possible_, they're probably going to look into ways of using it that don't involve the comps, huh."

"Well," Abel said, smiling. "I guess that's the government's problem." Not Abel's. Since he wasn't the government. "Still, if people like Captain Izuna have comps, they'd have a huge advantage over people who are trying to figure out how to do it the old fashioned way and getting tired since they're using their own energy to do all of it, including what the comps handle, so I don't think it's that big a deal," he said as the light in his hand burst into flame, then turned vaguely pinkish-purple like Holy Dance, then finally reverted back to gold. "It feels sort of like an ailment and sort of like zio," if Abel was any judge. "Ailment magic makes sense, since it put him to sleep. Actually, it might be mystic. I'd have to ask Yuzu, I never used that element much." Not in battle, but this wasn't a combat spell. It wasn't supposed to be, anyway. "Wish I'd known about this in the Lockdown." It took Yuzu so long to fall asleep they gave in after the first night and let her take first watch, and if she wasn't tired enough she had nightmares, like Keisuke after he rejoined them.

"I wonder if it only works on Naoya?" Atsuro wondered.

"Want to see?" Abel offered.

"Whoa, seriously?" Atsuro held out his hands, startled.

"I wouldn't do it if it hurt him. I think the shadow just kept it going longer than it's supposed to." Abel looked down at his black shirt. "I'd try it on myself, but you have to focus your emotions, so I don't think that would work."

"Not when it makes it hard to focus, right." Atsuro nodded. "Sure, I guess? Can you wake me up afterwards, though?" It was kind of weird that Naoya hadn't woken up, with near-strangers in the room.

"I should wake up Naoya," Abel said, voicing Atsuro's own thoughts, "but look at him."

"Yeah, I don't really have the heart either," Atsuro agreed while the two soldiers just watched. They were just teenagers, and they were willing to play with fire like this?

Damn the Lockdown…

The blue-haired kid looked at his friend, focusing until the golden light appeared in his fingers again. He shifted closer, watching Atsuro in case he decided to back out. An arm wrapped around his friend, those three fingers over his heart for a few measured heartbeats. A kiss of benediction pressed to his forehead, and Atsuro might have reacted to that if he wasn't already asleep against Abel's chest.

Abel pushed him away a bit to look at him, holding Atsuro by the shoulders… and then shook him a bit.

"Wha…" Atsuro was instantly awake, after the Lockdown. "Oh, right," he said, calming down. "That's one heck of a sleep spell. I was right: the first stage is heat. I could feel the marks when I was holding him in there, but that was… Like one of those really deep massages with heated rocks. No wonder he couldn't really think: my brain just went _off_. I'm amazed he could even grip that knife, with that spell relaxing everything like that." Well, that was Naoya.

Abel looked down at his hand speculatively. "No, I really don't think I could do that to myself." Darn, because that sounded handy. "Naoya should know how to do it. You should ask for magic lessons, Atsuro. I think I need to learn too, because I did this when I was just a little kid and I didn't even know it was magic because I didn't see any glowing. I'll have to make him tell me if I do anything else without thinking about it."

"I'm not sure if Yuzu will want to learn magic," but Atsuro looked glumly speculative, like he was sure she should, just in case.

"She should though. Still, I can't believe my shadow did that," Abel said, frowning at himself. "Telling Naoya to do something like that, but especially when he could barely think, forget moving." Normally Naoya vs. Izuna would be no contest, but handicapped like that? And the shadow must have known it, too: it wanted Naoya's obedience, his despairing desire to please, not his success. Once someone proved themselves worthy, then they weren't desperate to prove it anymore.

"Hey, I'm just glad we didn't have to fight both of them," Atsuro said, only half-joking.

"He was a pushover. I'm just glad I won't have to worry about him attacking you guys when you go in again."

"About that," Atsuro said. "Shouldn't we wake up Naoya?" And get it over with?

"I still feel fine," Abel told him, shrugging. "Since I'm not sick… I'd rather wait until tomorrow. Unless that's a problem for you guys?" He asked Izuna and Fushimi.

That was the difference between him and his cousin, right there. Naoya would have made that a rhetorical question, mocking the idea that anything might be more important than the King of Bel and his wishes. Abel actually cared about them and their input, and would feel genuinely bad about inconveniencing them.

* * *

When Izuna woke, she found Commander Fushimi in the dining area fortifying himself with coffee as he read reports on his laptop. "Naoya is already up," he told her. "He says he's fine." He'd brushed off Fushimi's concern and the very idea that he might be otherwise. "And that he'll make another attempt as soon as the boys wake up, although he confiscated their cell phones to make sure they wouldn't be woken up by an alarm."

"Didn't he say that the blood he gave Abel might wear off, sir?"

Fushimi nodded. "He seems to consider the time at which that happens that valuable information. Don't worry, Captain: use of the demon summoning program is still being kept to a minimum, and even with normal usage it took the young man days to become sick enough to be hospitalized." Of course, once it got to that point? His condition had gone from debilitating to fatal over the course of a few hours. "If Dr. Minegeshi thinks it's safe, he's the expert." Not that he had a formal doctorate in computer science or any other field, having gone straight from high school to full-time freelance work – there had been bidding wars over the time of his online persona when he was _twelve – _but he deserved the title of doctor at the very least. Professor, even, although so far he had only chosen a single student.

It was that student who had convinced Abel – Kazuya Minegeshi – to place that technology in the hands of Japan's government. So far they needed Naoya to program the system for them, but he was anything but trustworthy. The sooner Atsuro Kihara could learn more of his skills and lost occult lore…

Abel wandered into the main room before Atsuro did. "Where's breakfast?" he asked, yawning.

The two soldiers glanced at each other. "Your cousin said that he was going to gather ingredients."

Glancing at the clock, Abel frowned. "How long ago was that?"

"Approximately two hours ago." Fushimi glanced at Izuna.

If Naoya was trying to fatten Abel up, replenish the reserves he'd lost first during the lockdown and now because of this, then he should have _something _ready by now. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day.

"I'll get Atsuro and go look for him," Abel said, and turned to head back to the guest bedroom he and his friend had crashed in.

"No need," Commander Fushimi said, frowning. "I'll contact the perimeter guard." He hit a button on his radio. "This is Commander Fushimi."

Two more tries, and no response. "I'll go get Atsuro and our comps," Abel said this time.

"Let me go with you," Izuna said, taking out her own comp.

"We should check the greenhouse Atsuro told me about first," Abel said when they reconvened. "Since we know he was headed there…"

"No need," Naoya told them, sweeping into the room. "And no point." He headed for the kitchen area.

"Naoya!" Atsuro said, relieved. "What happened to you? You were gone for a long time and the guards aren't responding!"

"Don't worry," Naoya told him, filling a pot with water. "I called my secretary," liaison, the handler the government assigned the painful task of dealing with him, "to send different guards. Between the three of you, we should be able to manage without for another twenty minutes."

"What happened to them?" Fushimi demanded.

"I left them tied up in the greenhouse. After interrogating them to discover who exactly it was that _poisoned my garden_." Naoya scowled. "I can't believe they thought I would mistake herbicide for death by malnourishment, even if they hadn't made the mistake of _killing my control group_." Red eyes flashed angrily. "Orchids draw their nourishment from the air. They have always grown for me. I was _promised _that they would always grow for me, one of those small kindnesses professional torturers use to break their victims by deluding their victims into feeling _grateful _to those who torment them. Orchids still don't constitute true farming. Since keeping me from doing what I loved was God's intent, I wouldn't have put it past him to alter the curse to kill vegetables nourished by water. But killing the orchids, breaking His word to me… That would only have strengthened my will to resist _Him_."

"I can't believe that someone hand-picked for this duty," one of Fushimi's own special forces members. "Would have done something so unprofessional."

"Yet that's just what it was: a bit of unprofessional, personal vengeance. Something else that turned up during the interrogation, however? If I were you, I would be more concerned with the fact that the report you made about my brother's needs has already leaked to foreign intelligence agencies," Naoya told him. "That's why they acted last night, instead of waiting until right before the first real harvest could be gathered. One of their comrades had reason to egg them on."

"Oh crap!" was Atsuro's reaction. "You mean they did this to get at Abel, too?" Not just to revenge the people who died in the Lockdown on Naoya, but were they after Atsuro's best friend?

"Many feared demons even before what happened to Tokyo," Naoya reminded him. "Even if Remiel made a statement to the government and endorsed your plan, Atsuro, many still think making use of demons is 'ungodly.'" A small smile: that was just a recommendation for it in Naoya's eyes. "Countries dominated by _his _followers are far less tolerant of spirits than Japan. Some will try to take the power of demons for themselves: others will try to deny it to their fellow man. They're wrong, however. My brother's death won't deactivate Babel. It would have been stupid to program it that way." Imagine if recarm stopped functioning just when it was needed most, to revive the person who was why Naoya had programmed all of this to begin with. "I would appreciate it if you highlighted that in your next report, Commander Fushimi. At least until you find and patch certain holes in your security."

Izuna asked what Commander Fushimi wasn't. "Why wasn't this-" reported to the Commander, if Naoya had already called for new guards. "They can't suspect the Commander!"

"This _did _happen the night your commander came here. The Commander of your task force went inside the Lockdown, and we all know that he has reason to bear a grudge against me, or hate the power of demons," after seeing so many of Japan's citizens killed. Naoya wasn't especially worried. "I didn't think that I would do him any favors by acting as a character witness," even if there was no one with more experience reading people than Naoya.

"When you say interrogated, you mean?" was what Abel wanted to know.

"I mean they weren't equipped with Null Mystic, what did you think I meant?"

Abel didn't get sucked into mentioning the obvious: Naoya had just brought up torture himself. "Wouldn't gigajama make them forget what you wanted them to tell you instead of making them forget that they shouldn't tell you things?" Since he didn't see how sleep or any of the others would be much help.

"I charmed them," Naoya told him, removing spices from another cupboard. "Think of it as a temporary love spell. I didn't put those spells into the comps: too prone to abuse. Charm someone, and they'll tell you whatever you want to know. Or whatever they think you want to hear: that's the trouble with obtaining information that way." For people who didn't have plenty of practice telling truth from lies. "Drawing enough of that spell to affect all of the guards and then ambushing them with it is what took me so long. Hacking it into my comp would have been much faster, but I'd rather not have that spell in the hands of politicians." Unless Abel wanted Naoya to enable the comps to use Charm?

Even Atsuro didn't want to go that far. "Do I want to know what happened to the one who killed your plants?" When Naoya had seemed so happy in that garden, too.

"I considered using him as a human sacrifice – Oh, don't worry, I set samarecarm – but since he, at least, did it in order to wound my heart instead of starve my brother, all I did was play up how terribly I was affected by it." Naoya put his hand over his heart dramatically, looking up at the kitchen ceiling as if imploring heaven for mercy. "Thousands of years without being able to tend the plants I love so dearly, and all I wanted to do was share the best of my harvest with my beloved family…" Right now Naoya wasn't fooling anyone, but they all knew he could do better than that.

"While he was in love with you?" Abel grinned. That was _perfect_.

"I had to tie him up well apart from the others." Otherwise after hearing all that they might have found some way to murder him on Naoya's behalf even after being expertly tied up. They were special forces troops, after all. "It's almost a pity it will have worn off of all of them by the time the relief force gets here. Even if I don't want to encourage the government's interest in that class of spells."

"But if you're right, and other people will be doing research into the old ways of casting spells like that," Atsuro started to point out.

"Why do you think that I put Null Mystic in the default VIP defensive skill set?" Along with repel physical, to protect politicians from assassins' bullets. "Anyone who takes that out of their skill set, unless they're going into battle, actually need other skills and someone present can use amrita, is a fool." And if they were a fool who thought they should mess around with defaults Naoya had programmed in for a reason, then they deserved what was coming to them. "Even I can't make it last more than half an hour. Charm is absolutely useless for long-term brainwashing, and the targets will realize what happened to them as soon as they snap out of it." Obviously making it hard to build that 'love at first sight' into a longer-lasting emotional entanglement. "The demon summoning program's users already _have _defenses against charm spells, Atsuro. There's no need to tell people how it works so they can design their own defenses." When that would expose them to the temptation to make use of it themselves. "I'd rather have used intimidation and a prop," the knife in his hand at that moment was clearly meant to indicate what Naoya meant by 'a prop,' "but I _am _a guest of the Japanese government, and it would have taken too long to extract information from soldiers trained to resist interrogation without stronger measures."

No, Fushimi would _not _have appreciated Naoya torturing the innocent men among his guard detail. Still, for him to use mind control? "You could have reported the incident to me. I would have investigated it for the sake of the unit." That Naoya was the victim had nothing to do with anything: he expected better of his soldiers.

"Yes," Naoya agreed, "I could have."

So why hadn't he? What kind of message was he trying to send? If they let him get away with this, then what sort of precedent would the government be creating?

Could they even prosecute Naoya for this? There were some laws against various forms of magic left on the books from when people believed in that sort of thing, but what were the odds they were lucky enough for any of them to apply in this situation?

Well, once the report came in that mind control magic was possible, they would have to pass laws against it very quickly so Naoya couldn't get away with this a second time… Perhaps that was part of his scheme, although Fushimi wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could anticipate all the levels the ancient was working on, trying to manipulate the government. They'd had him interviewed by profilers, but the results hadn't told Fushimi anything he didn't know from guarding Naoya along with the angel Sariel while he worked on his alterations to the demon summoning program.

Brilliant (and he knew it), arrogant (but special forces officers knew arrogance: when you were just that good?) and beyond that? How did you see through someone with _that much practice_ as an actor?

Perhaps it really was best to consider him a demon, like so many other beings out of myth. An ancient creature, far more willing to resort to violence and disdainful of the rules of society than most of the people of this modern world. At least they could hope that they knew Naoya's goals, and at least the outline of what he would do to accomplish them.

He'd told the programmers, including the one that defected from the Shomonkai to give first Abel and his allies and then Izuna what information he knew, that, "Allies should be able to trust each other, shouldn't they?" He'd told the Founder and the rest of the Shomonkai that he was committed to their goal of saving humanity from God's Ordeal… but there was so much he hadn't told them.

Yet, in the end, hadn't Naoya's brother accomplished the Founder's goal for him? And without humanity being conquered by a demon. There _were _advantages to dealing with others honestly: once you betrayed someone, for example, they wouldn't trust you again.

Normally, humans could lie several times in a single conversation, especially when meeting new people, without even being aware of it. One thing that one of the profilers had noticed which Fushimi found interesting was that, after reviewing the tape, Naoya had not told one single lie in that conversation, at least not one that could be identified. So different from the casual, thoughtless way most lied without any real malice in it.

If Naoya had formed a habit of avoiding lies, learned the skill of manipulating others, of goading them into action with the sharp-edged truth… Of course, the angels couldn't lie. That didn't mean that they couldn't _deceive_. To what degree was Naoya like them, when they came from the same mythology? Had he learned to avoid any and all lies because the angels would call him on them, and the only defense against being called a deceiver was perfect truth?

"Take this, cousin," Naoya said, holding out the hilt of a knife. "Now get over here and chop this up for me."

"Do you want slices, cubes or sticks?" Abel wanted to know, pushing himself up from the stool and shifting his grip on the knife as he went around the peninsula dividing the kitchen from the main room.

"Cubes," Naoya told him. "The usual size for stew."

"Stew? But I'm hungry." And good stew could take too long.

Naoya rolled his eyes, just a little. "I know. That's while I'll finish breakfast while you get the ingredients ready for lunch." Timing.

"What about me, Naoya?" Atsuro asked, perking up.

"After what happened when you tried to make me curry? Set the table." Naoya reflexively checked that his hair was securely tied back so none of it fell in the food. Translucent silver strands were hard to spot. "One of these days, I _will _teach you how to cook. I don't understand how people can be carelessly inept with something so vital."

"Naoya was sick, so we wanted to look after him for the day, but Atsuro wandered off to check a forum while something was on the stove and it caught fire," Abel explained to Izuna. "The alarm went off and Naoya had to evacuate the apartment complex with everyone else in the fuzzy slippers I gave him last year."

"Hey!" Atsuro protested. "You were the one who hid his other shoes!"

"That I did," Abel said happily. "His feet would have gotten cold and wet if he'd worn his normal geta." That couldn't have helped him recover from the flu.

Naoya gave Atsuro a look: his attempt to deflect Naoya's annoyance to Abel had failed just as badly now as it had back then. "I _could _have just worn earplugs and stayed in bed if the fire hadn't been set off in my apartment." Meaning he would have been found and fined for ignoring the alarm. Regardless, he soon replaced the annoyed expression with a smile and told Atsuro, "No need to look so worried. If I wanted revenge, I'd have taken it already." He reached out to ruffle Atsuro's hair, or rather squish it around under that hat since it was in the way.

Atsuro ducked back and protested, "Naoya!" but with a laugh instead of anger at the gesture of familiarity.

"Now get over here and start getting the plates," Naoya said. "I told you to set the table, didn't I?"

"Oh, right." Atsuro bustled around happily while Abel finished off the radish he'd chopped with a practiced hand and set down the knife a moment before Naoya picked up the cutting board and dumped the contents into a pot, then set it back down and placed a few green onions on top of it.

"Are these for the omelet?" Abel asked hopefully.

"Of course: I know you like them. The chickens were delivered yesterday." So the eggs gathered for Abel's sake would help, even if it would take time for Naoya to flush the herbicide out of his hydroponic setup and begin again. Sacrifices were supposed to consist of the best fruits of one's labor, so these were barely adequate, lucky to be judged acceptable at all. "But I'll take another look at the power conduits as soon as they deliver some more reliable guards."

Abel nodded, not especially worried about it. Breakfast was much more urgent, judging from the way his stomach rumbled. "Do you want me to stay up here, Naoya?"

"No," Naoya told him. "You wanted a normal life: there's no need to join me in my exile. I won't mind seeing you again, but after things have quieted down a little."

"But if people are still out to get you…"

"And people are still wondering if you and Atsuro were conspiring with me. If you knew about the demon summoning program in advance and handing it over to the government was some plot to make Japan dependant on it as a precursor to a coup, building yourself a power base, instead of something stupidly self-sacrificing." He glanced at Atsuro as he said 'stupidly,' and at the back of Abel's head as he said 'self-sacrificing.' "When _you _are worried about _me, _little brother? Of course I have to say no: I have my pride as an older brother, after all."

"Oh, won't they try to kill or kidnap me? I mean, I do control Babel. I thought mentioning that was a little obvious, though." Since of course Naoya would have already considered threats to his brother. "What if the conduit breaks down again after you fix it?"

"What if you get Haru pregnant accidently and I end up with yet another niece?" Naoya wondered, since they were discussing things that while very bad, were also unlikely. "They have recarm now, little brother, remember? The Japanese government isn't going to risk you reincarnating as a foreign national." No, they'd want him to live as long and healthy a life as possible. "Now be quiet, I'm trying to decide how I'll season your murdered baby animals."

Atsuro winced while Abel groaned. "Knock it off, Naoya. Those eggs weren't even fertilized, were they?" Abel was prepared to bet on it, knowing Naoya. "Don't make me sing Every Sperm Is Sacred."

Abel's friend or not, Atsuro still stuck his fingers in his ears. Abel's English was a little better than Atsuro's, but it still wasn't good enough to sing a song like that without sounding ridiculous – or actually, sounding ridiculous was the point. "This is my fault for showing you those Monty Python movies my parents sent me to make me work on my English, isn't it?"

"To be fair," Naoya reminisced, pouring plenty of green onions into the omelet, "I'd already shown him _Life of Brian_."

It wasn't that Naoya didn't like some of the New Testament, especially compared to the Old: he'd quoted from one of Paul's letters in his own Demon Summoning Program.

It was also complete fantasy.

God already _had _sent his only begotten son to earth, and his name was Adam.

The stonings, human hysterical belief and division, inability to cooperate to fight their oppressors without a strong leader: those were reality.

So was the brother who leaned over his arm to look down at his omelet hungrily before starting to sing.

"Go ahead, look on the bright side of life all you want," Naoya said, waving the spatula at him. "I still have samarecarm set." See if I care if you die again.

"You sing too, Naoya," the boy demanded with false petulance.

"I think you've mistaken me for Haru. Although I suppose I have experience looking on the bright side of death." He gave Abel a grin, remembering the lyrics.

This wasn't their last chance. Abel had his power back, even if he was refusing to awaken. That was fine: those memories would be present in his next incarnation, and that Abel would have no reason to refuse them. There was no reason not to take a little break to celebrate this victory, to spend the rest of this life in peace: once the war began there would be no time for trips to the pool or gardening.

Things would be too serious for his little brother to joke with him so easily.

They watched Naoya pull Abel towards him, catching him by the arm just long enough for a brief kiss on the forehead. "Now go sit down: I'll be done faster without you doing what little brothers do best." Annoying me.

That smile: Abel knew he didn't really mean it.

Good.

* * *

_We know Atsuro's English isn't good, so he probably sticks to Japanese areas of the net, but I doubt that's true of Naoya. _Monty Python and the Holy Grail _might be his least favorite of their movies, since it has a far lower ratio of skewering of religion and so on to pure absurdism. _


End file.
